Accession Number

2012.007.001.086

Description

One black cut-out silhouette of a woman wearing a high-necked jacket and low-profile hat.

Narrative

This silhouette depicts Laura Miller Dunsmuir (nee Surles). It was made by cutting away the gray page in a photograph album and placing black paper inside the cut away area.

The silhouette was created in a brown suede leather album that documents the life and times of the James and Laura Dunsmuir family from about 1895 onward. The album includes scenes at their house Burleith on Victoria's Gorge Waterway, various coastal locales north of Victoria, and parts of the United Kingdom.

History of Use

This silhouette was made in about 1900 and placed in an album created by the James and Laura Dunsmuir family at Burleith, their home on Victoria's Gorge Waterway. In 1906 it was probably taken by the family to Victoria's Government House where they lived while James served as British Columbia's eighth Lieutenant Governor. From there it was taken to the family's new house, Hatley Park, in 1910.

Sometime after Laura Miller Dunsmuir's death in 1937, the album became the property of Dola Frances Dunsmuir (also known as Mrs. Dola Cavendish) and was kept at her house Dolaura in Colwood, B.C. After hear death, the album was owned by her sister Kathleen's daughter, Judith Humphreys (also known as Mrs. Judith Joy). Her daughter donated the album to Craigdarroch Castle in 2012.

Date

circa 1900

Dimensions

10.2 x 8.2 cm

Medium

Paper

Technique

Cut

Country of Origin

Canada